


We're All Ostriches (And the World Is Made of Sand)

by Writegirl



Series: Fucked Up Love Songs [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Phil Coulson, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Maybe - Freeform, Not A Fix-It, Phil Coulson's Cellist, Pre-Avengers Movie, SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writegirl/pseuds/Writegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All good things must come to an end, whether we want them to or not. Best-relationships-you-ever-had don't get an exception.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>When the Director came into his field of view Phil gave his final report. <i></i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the beginning of the last part of my Fucked Up Love Songs verse. This is going to be a choose your own ending fic, so PLEASE pay attention to the directions on later chapters. The title is from Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (highly recommended).
> 
> Here she is, hope you enjoy ^_^

        They don’t argue about her need to go home to help with her mother. They don’t argue about her quitting SHIELD entirely instead of being transferred to a small field office outside Portland, or about her plans to drive back home instead of flying. What they argue about, in the end, is them.

        “No.”

        Darcy folded a pair of jeans. “No?”

        “No.”

        She leaned over her duffle bag, arms taking her weight. “Phil…”

        It’s the same argument they’ve had for the past three days. It took Darcy seventeen hours to decide she was moving back home; seventeen hours of sitting in a hospital room and pretending to eat bad hospital food. Seventeen hours until her mom opened her eyes, one side drooped. It took six more to determine she was really sure about that decision and a week to admit she wasn’t going to keep Phil waiting for her come back. Once the term ‘chronic condition’ entered the conversation she knew that was it. Her mother would probably need care the rest of her life (and just how short that could be still made her heart clench, despite every thought she’d had about it, ever), and she wasn’t going to have him waiting for weeks, or months, or years for one Darcy Lewis to roll back into his life.

        Phil didn’t agree.

        They weren’t really arguing. He fully supported her going home and helping her mother, though he was clear it would be more for her benefit than Diane’s. He didn’t want her to spend the rest of her life feeling guilty if she didn’t. He was just unwilling to see it as an end to what they had. 

        “We can have a relationship with you in Portland,” he explained from his spot near her empty bookcase. “We did it when I was in New York.”

        That was his reasoning. They’d rocked the long-distance before and did pretty damn well, so they could do it again. “That was for two months.” She gave him her best glare. “Besides, I’m gonna be caretaking full-time. Not exactly a paying gig. We’d never see each other and Skype can only go so far.”

        “I have two hundred seventy five thousand frequent flyer miles,” he threw out. “Travel isn’t the problem.”

        She blinked. “What? Really?” Darcy knew he traveled, but damn. She shook herself and got back on track. “I’m not gonna ask you to wait for me to move back,” her voice was just a little testy. “You’re not transferring to Portland. _And_ there’s no way to know if I’ll even be able to move back. So, the answer is yes, Phil.” For once in her life she was being the mature one, making the difficult decision, only to have the person she was trying not to hurt be fucking difficult about it.

        And that warm feeling in her chest every time he found a new reason for them to stay together, that wasn’t anything. Nope. Nothing at all.

        Arms wrapped around her from behind, and that was cheating, damn it. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere.”

        She had to give him that. “No, you’re not. But I am.” 

        That was the end of the conversation.

        Not the _end,_ end. It didn’t have that kind of finality to it. She’d learned over the course of their relationship that Phil was sneaky. The man had ways of winning arguments even when you knew -- and _he_ knew -- he was in the wrong. So when he suddenly started being helpful and stopped doing things like unpacking her bags (she’d packed the same purple skirt three times. She never saw him do it, but she refused to think there were actual gremlins in her apartment) she knew she was in trouble. When he agreed to take Merlin she started looking over her shoulder, sure a SHIELD strike team was lurking, just waiting to kidnap her and take her to parts unknown.

        It was hard to believe, but Jane was worse.

        Her boss was genuinely saddened to hear about her mother’s failing health, and fully supported Darcy going home and helping her get back on her feet (because Jane refused to acknowledge a downside)… so long as it wasn’t permanent. Apparently one Darcy Lewis, Political Science Major, former barista and college dropout was the best assistant the small scientist had ever had, and Jane wasn’t going to give that up if she had anything to say about it.

        “I can email you everything,” Jane pleaded halfway through Darcy’s explanation of her filing system. At this point Darcy was sure Jane refused to remember just to be difficult. How many times did you have to explain that Periwinkle Blue pertained to lower atmosphere phenomenon to someone with multiple PhDs? “I need something, you email it back.”

        “SHIELD-“

        “ _SHIELD_ can go hump a volcano,” Jane crossed her arms.

        Ouch. “So that’s a ‘no’ on the arc reactor?”

        Jane rolled her eyes. “Take a week, a month. Hell, take a _year,_ just promise you’ll come back.”

        That was so close to what Phil tried to drag out of her it hurt. She wasn’t used to being so…well…so _wanted._ Especially by smart, capable, fucking awesome people. “Promise you’ll give another assistant a chance.” She couldn’t make the same request of Phil. She was a good person. She wasn’t that good a person.

        “Sure.”

        “Pinky swear?”

        In the end she made Jane pinky swear, cross her heart, and spit on the floor after turning a circle three times (hey, whatever works) before she agreed. “If I’m still sane when everything’s done, I’ll come back and be your assistant again.” 

        Her boss rolled her eyes skyward. “Thank _God.”_ She thrust a pile of readouts into Darcy’s arms. “Now please help me make all this make sense.”

* * *

        There was no wild sex the night before she set out. They’d had that when she first came back from Portland, so numb and wanting to feel something, anything, other than the cold that had taken root in her chest. Instead, they’d driven to Puente Antiguo and let Jane give her a ‘Hurry the Hell Up and Come Back’ party. Their small gathering (Erik, Jane, Phil, Agent Barton, some friends from Los Felix and a few of Jane’s rotating cast of guards) took up a corner booth and a few tables at Greg’s. There was well-wishing for her and her mother, extra contact information from everyone and the biggest single cupcake she’d ever seen in her life. She and Phil were the last to leave, but they managed to share a plate of cheese fries and a pitcher of Pepsi before heading to the Blue Moon. It wasn’t the same room, but it was enough like it that she found herself believing just before she fell asleep that everything was beginning, not ending.

        “Take care,” Phil told her as they stood by her car the next morning. The sun just coming up painted the sky red-orange and edged the few clouds in neon pink. He was wearing jeans and a new Captain America t-shirt under a thick jacket, the red and blue rings bright and crisp. “Drive safe.”

        “I’ll call you from Moab.” She stood by her car and gave it a once over. She had Talula packed with everything she’d need, the front seat piled with road food. The rest of her stuff was with Jane or in storage, which was Phil’s doing. He called it saving money. She called it giving her a reason to come back that didn’t directly involve him.

        Like she said. Sneaky.

        “So…um…” _I love you,_ her brain supplied. _I love you and I miss you already and please be okay I’m so sorry_. She held out her hand instead. “See you around, Agent Coulson.”

        A smile cracked his serious expression, followed by a small chuckle. He took her hand. “Good journey, Ms. Lewis.”

        Somewhere between shaking hands they moved to hugging, and she found herself hanging on for dear life. “Be careful,” she whispered into his shoulder.

        “I always am.”

        Darcy pulled back and smiled up at him. 

        She pulled into Gallup three hours later for a scheduled fill up and bathroom break. She was in the convenience store, leaning down to get a better look at the donuts, when a hand landed on her shoulder. Darcy was up, Sparky free of her holster and pointed at the person’s chest, in one smooth move. A man wearing a leather jacket and thick sunglasses was standing behind her, his hands up in the universal signal for 'Please, don't shoot'.

        “You’ve been practicing.” When she didn’t lower the tazer his grin went wider. “Phil said he’d been training you.”

        Then it clicked. “Clint.”

        One hand moved in a slight salute. “Barton.” He finished. “Darcy Lewis.”

        “Hey, everything all right back there?” The shout came from the front of the store.

        Darcy lowered the tazer. “Fine.” She glared at him as she tucked Sparky back into her holster, a Christmas gift from Phil. “Does he have a tracking device on me or something?” She felt along her shoulders.

        “Nope. Happy accident,” he said cheerfully. “Didn’t get a chance to say goodbye with everybody.” He wore an expression of hurt so false it made her smirk.

        “You’re the one who wanted in on the drinking contest with Adam.”

        She could imagine him rolling his eyes behind the thick shades. “The guy is like ninety pounds.”

        “And all of it liver.”

        He muttered something about tiny Russians and vodka. “Admit it, he was getting water, wasn’t he?” 

        “So,” she drawled, ignoring the question. “You just happen to be in Gallup the same day I’m going home?”

        He shrugged. “Small world.”

        "With what is obviously a monster hangover." When he just stood there she rolled her eyes. “Which bag?”

        “What?”

        Darcy crossed her arms. “Which bag is the tracker in, Clint?”

        He mimed zipping his lips.

        In retaliation she made him carry her new load of road snacks to the checkout counter and from there to the car. “Is someone gonna be at all my stops?”

        “Probably.” When she started in on him he held up his hands in defeat. “Hey, you’re the one who didn’t want him to ride with you. Next time, just say yes.”

_There won’t be a next time,_ she almost said.

        “So...” He pulled out a card with a phone number typed on it. “That’s me. Need anything, let me know.” He flipped the card out of her reach. “And no, Phil didn’t tell me to say that.”

        She took it, running a finger along the crisp edge before tucking it into her pocket. “Thanks, Clint.”

        He gave her a searching look. “No problem.”

        When the car pulled out of the Shell station the sounds of Benny Goodman blaring out it's windows made him laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

        The trip back home to Portland wasn’t quite as nice as the one to New Mexico, but she managed. The trip south had busy roads, sometimes packed roads; people on vacation, families going to visit relatives in far-flung states, and people just driving because they felt like it. On six separate occasions when she’d stopped at some roadside diner she’d been drawn into sitting with strangers, everyone eager to share stories of where they were from or where they were going.

        Winter seemed to have cooled a lot of that camaraderie along with the weather. The smaller stops were almost deserted, what few that weren’t completely closed. She was glad she mapped the route out with Phil ahead of time because she would have run out of gas and food at some points without his double checking. The diners were sparsely populated and everyone seemed more intent on getting where they were going than on the going itself. Apparently winter wasn’t the time for making memories, or meeting new people. It was the time for getting to your destination as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. She made the trip in three days, two less than her first time.

__

        “You should have stayed in New Mexico.”

        “You wanted me, now I’m here.” Darcy hung up a sweater. She wasn’t in her old room: Aunt Ginger had claimed that territory and she was willing to let her aunt keep it. She was currently in her mother’s whatever-has-caught-my-eye-this- month studio, which meant her clothes were hanging besides skeins of yarn, buckets of beads, and some machinery she couldn’t figure out from looking at it. Darcy had taken one hard look at the loft outback and decided against it. Too far away if something major was happening. “Besides, I gave up my apartment. You’re stuck with me.”

        It was strange, being back in Portland, being back _home_. The further north she drove the more the wet seemed to crowd in on her. Not as much in Utah (happily, gloriously dry), but once the I-84 cut through central Idaho she could feel it. She wouldn’t have thought that four years in a desert could make her notice the humidity as a strange, oppressive thing. Once she passed into Oregon the sky turned overcast and stayed overcast.

        Her mother leaned against the doorjamb. “Move in with your boyfriend.”

        “Mom…” Darcy took a deep breath and gave her mother a level stare. “Shut up.”

        So far, her homecoming had been exactly how she imagined it would be. She and Talula pulled into the driveway around noon, loaded down with what she could truck from Los Felix. Aunt Ginger was happy to see her. Her mother told her not to make a mess and proceeded to ignore her until Ginger went to pick up dinner.

        “I don’t need two babysitters,” her mother whined, stepping into the room. Her words were slightly slurred, a hangover from two weeks before. The doctors were sure that with therapy she would have a full recovery, but for the moment the right half of her face sagged just a touch.

        “No, you need four. Two to look after you and two more to keep them from strangling you in your sleep.” She let a little humor tinge her words. She didn’t mean it. Not really. Not yet. “Did you take your pills? Aunt Ginger said you needed to take them by seven.”

        Her mother rolled her eyes. “I took them.”

        “ _All_ of them?”

        “God-damn it, yes!” Diane threw a pair of underwear she’d fished from Darcy’s suitcase on the bed. “All of them.”

        “Good.”

        Diane didn’t know what to say to that, and she stalked away. Darcy just shook her head. She’d read somewhere that the only way to deal with some animals was to establish dominance immediately. Anything else and you risked getting attacked the minute your back was turned. So far the tactic was working.

        She was unpacking her last bag and wondering if she could talk her mother into getting rid of the awful candy pink wallpaper of her room when she saw it: a rolled bundle tucked into the corner of her suitcase. She shook out the white cloth and smiled. The red and blue rings were so faded they were almost non-existent, the material soft from countless trips through a washing machine. Phil had been wearing a new Captain America t-shirt the last time she saw him.

        Because he gave her his favorite.

        When Ginger showed up with KFC for them and heated up a TV dinner for her sister they settled around the table. It wasn’t the most auspicious of beginnings, but it could have been worse.

        Darcy’s days settled into a routine. There were pills to get used to, dosages and dosage times to memorize, because Diane Lewis refused to do anything easy including admit she was sick and needed to slow down. Her mother rarely slept through the night due to medication and pain, so Ginger stayed up with her. At eight o’clock came shift change, and Darcy made breakfast when she could stomach food. Then came clean up. 

        Treatment days, and the days after treatment days, were the worst. She got used to cleaning up vomit, to watching her mother rock back and forth with pain and nausea. They started leaving buckets in every room, because it was easier than trying to keep her in bed. That would result in an argument in the hallway, which meant vomit in the hallway, which led to hysterics as her mom tried to clean it but vomited more because of the smell of the chemicals (see #5 on the Darcy Scale of Fucked-Up Days).

        “She’s glad you’re here, though,” Aunt Ginger said one night while they were making dinner. “Believe it or not, she was harder to deal with.”

        The sad thing was she could.

        “She’ll settle down once she’s adjusted to having you back in her life,” Phil soothed when she called him after the first week. Just a friendly call, she reassured herself. Just two friends who hadn’t seen each other and wanted to catch up, with nothing romantic about it.

        Darcy snorted. “Yeah, pull the other one while you’re at it.” She pressed her hand against the window. “How’s work?”

        “Making progress.”

        She took her hand away and watched as the hazy imprint faded. “Sounds exciting.” She couldn’t ask him more, couldn’t talk to him about anything relevant. He wouldn’t discuss SHIELD shenanigans with her before she quit, he wasn’t going to now that she was a civilian again. Thinking about that made a hollow feeling twine around her ribs. “I gotta go,” she covered. “Aunt Ginger wants help in the morning with some stuff.”

        “Oh.” He sounded like he wanted to say something more, and that made the feeling spike. Darcy covered the mouthpiece with her hand so he wouldn’t hear the small noise she made in the back of her throat. “Goodnight then.”

        “Goodnight, Phil.”

* * *

        Valentine ’s Day was a 24 hour trip to Special Hell. They’d agreed that they were ending it, not waiting around and pining for each other. She was not going to turn them into some twisted modern version of the Notebook, or whatever tragic love story they resembled. That didn’t stop them from spending the whole day practically glued to each other’s phones waiting for responses to texts. Phil sent her a picture of a cake someone stashed in the breakroom: a giant, anatomically correct rendition of a heart sculpted out of red velvet cake and fondant with raspberry filling and the words ‘I love my job’ etched into it in black frosting like a burn. The maker remained a mystery. Video from the break room showed a completely empty table one moment, the next the cake, plates, and plastic forks were there, the timestamp showing that approximately two minutes were missing.

        Darcy smiled when Phil told her, and then made an excuse to hang up a few minutes later. She dialed an 800 number.

        It picked up on the first ring.

        “Mission accomplished,” a male voice said from the other end.

        “Thanks, Clint.” She was about to hang up when he spoke again.

        “He misses you, you know.”

        “I miss him, too.”

        There was a beat, and she thought Clint was going to say something, but then he sighed. “You need any more stealth missions, let me know.” He rattled off another number.

        Falling into a routine that didn’t include Darcy was painfully simple for Phil. He noticed an increase in productivity after the first week. Without the drive to Los Felix at least three days out of seven he could spend more hours focused on doing his job of making sure everyone else was doing theirs. It also gave him more time to work on the side project Fury assigned him.

        Phil called up the display for Captain America’s new uniform. The traditional outfit was more show-man than soldier, though Rogers had done an admirable job of scavenging and utilizing new pieces when necessary. The key was making him something that was familiar but modern, something that would be useful in the field when Nick decided he was needed, and Phil knew the Director would. Captain America was the world’s first true superhero. The man had abilities that had yet to be matched in any meaningful way in over seventy years, with two extremely notable exceptions. He couldn’t remain on the sidelines forever, and when he got into the game Phil wanted him to have something worth wearing.

        That, and designing took up a surprising amount of his new free time.

        A shadow passed his door and Phil looked up from his screen. “Agent Barton?”

        Clint stopped midstride and backpedaled, stopping at the threshold of his office with an expression of fixed innocence. Phil sighed internally. 

        “Sir?”

        “Dr. Selvig informed me that you’re having a disagreement with one of his scientists,” he started slowly, almost conversationally.

        Barton’s expression never wavered. “I wouldn’t call it a disagreement.”

        “I’m curious. What would you call slamming a man’s hand in a door?” He kept his tone neutral, but Clint responded as if he’d snapped an order. The easy line of his spine straightened, his hands went to his sides, almost at attention, but not quite.

        Clint’s hands flexed at his sides. “I’d call it reeducating, sir.”

        Phil raised an eyebrow. “Continue.”

        Clint’s eyes found his. “Dr. Chalmers appeared to believe that Agent Cortez’s duties included keeping him entertained while she was on duty.”

        He cycled through the SHEILD roster. Cortez was a recent recruit, barely twenty. “And Agent Crotez informed you of this misunderstanding?”

        “She didn’t have to.” Clint cocked his head. “It was either me breaking a few fingers, or her taking him out into the desert and staking him down for the sun. My way requires less paperwork.”

        Phil was already calling up information on a replacement for Dr. Chalmers by the time Barton finished talking. “Thank you, Agent,” he said as he typed. “Dismissed.”

        “Sir.” Clint looked over his shoulder. “I’m not gonna be written up? Chastised? Nothing?”

        Coulson glanced up. “Would you like me to-“

        “No!” Clint answered quickly. “I’ll just…” he tossed his thumb over his shoulder.

        “See that you do.”

* * *

        “This blows.”

        Clint was upside down on Natasha’s couch, head brushing the floor while his legs dangled over the backrest. 

        “It was their decision,” Natasha said from the kitchen.

        “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t blow,” he righted himself and came to the door. “Need some-“

        “You set foot in my kitchen and I’m going to gut you. Slowly.” She said it without turning around, without the knife she was using to chop vegetables with frightening speed slowing down.

        Clint leaned against the door. “Come on, Tasha. It was one time.”

        She didn’t respond.

        “One time,” he repeated. “Three years ago. It was an accident.”

        “Back away,” she ordered, dumping sliced mushrooms into a pan. 

        Clint held up his hands and stepped back into the dining room. Really, it was _one_ pressure cooker. How was he supposed to know the thing would explode? He’d paid for the repainting, and the new carpet. He still didn’t understand why someone who worked in their business had white carpet. “This whole lack of trust is really-“

        Something dark and fast darted out from behind _something_ , and a line of fire crawled its way up his leg. He did not screech like a little girl, he reasoned later. His yell was entirely manly, and in keeping with someone getting his skin ripped off at the speed of sound.

        “Damn it, T!” he looked down, where four parallel lines were beginning to leak blood. “What the hell are you teaching that thing?”

        A towel sailed out of the kitchen and landed on his foot. “Don’t bleed on my carpet.”

        He glared and wrapped the dark material around his foot. “Where the fuck did you find that asshole, anyway?”

        Said asshole was in the kitchen, on top of the refrigerator glaring at him.

        Natasha didn’t answer.

        The cat dismissed him with a flick of his tail and turned his attention to the counter by the fridge, where thin strips of raw beef were piled neatly, waiting to be added to a smoking wok. His muscles bunched and Clint smiled to himself. The cat was so dead.

        “Don’t even think it.”Natasha looked up from the stove and nailed the cat with a stare he could feel from the other room. The tabby backed away with a hiss before jumping off the refrigerator and twining himself through her legs with a trilling meow. The damn thing was psychotic, it was the only explanation. Psychotic, but smart. He’d yet to see any scars on Natasha from claws or teeth. The thing treated him like he had a creamy center, and all it needed to do was find the right place to scratch.

        By the time Clint limped to the bathroom, doused his foot in disinfectant and had the cuts bandaged Natasha was setting dinner on the table.

        “He misses her,” Clint said as he sat down, eyes darting to spot his nemesis.

        “Has he figured out the cake incident, yet?”

        “Pretty sure he knew from the beginning.” He took a bite of stirfry. “Think she’s discovered her car has a new engine yet?”

        Natasha didn’t answer, just held up her glass. “To идиоты in love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry for dragging things out a little, but I wanted everything set up right.
> 
> идиоты roughly translates to idiots


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy ^_^

        By April things were calm.

        Diane was responding to the chemo-therapy. Not as well as her doctors originally hoped, but the progress of the cancer slowed from a wildfire to a steady smolder. Living with her had gotten easier as well, since Darcy won the compassionate use argument and she got a medical marijuana card. Keeping Diane stoned wasn’t the best solution, but it was the one she had to work with, and the one that worked best with everyone. Ginger brought a copy of _The Cannabis Cookbook_ , and they spent an afternoon making some of the more adventurous recipes (and an evening baked out of their minds, but that was another story).

        After four months Darcy was finally used to sleeping by herself again. She didn’t wake up wondering where Phil was, or what he was doing. The sharp pain that made her stomach roll when she thought about him was blunted and she found herself thinking she made the right decision. She couldn’t imagine dragging that feeling along for six months, a year, or longer. It would drive them both crazy, and while she wasn’t that much of a threat, tazer aside, Phil had access to weapons of mass destruction. 

        She should have known it wouldn’t last. 

* * *

    _“It is a scene of controlled chaos out here, eighty miles north-west of Socorro. Search and Rescue workers from all branches of the government have descended on this normally empty section of the desert. We’ve been told there are as many as a hundred NASA workers buried alive with no word on how many, if any, survived the initial blast that left a crater nearly half a mile wide here and created shockwaves felt as far south as White Sands.”_

        This was not happening.

        This was _not_ happening.

        Darcy picked up her phone, fingers dialing without looking at the keypad. The number rang twice before going to voicemail.

        “ _This is Coulson. Leave a message.”_

        “Phil, its Darcy.” She’d had practice keeping her voice even over the last few months, but it still shook. “I just saw the news. Let me know you’re okay.” She didn’t mention how scared she was, how much she needed him to be all right. Phil had enough shit on his plate at the moment, he didn’t need clinging ex’s on top of everything else. _Just concern between friends,_ Darcy reassured herself. 

        Next was Jane.

        “Darcy!” Jane was short of breath and there was the dull sound of many people moving in the background.

        “Are you okay?”

        “Yeah.” Someone asked her a question and she answered back. “The goon-squad moved me.”

        Darcy’s stomach dropped. “Moved?”

        “My request for Tromsø went through. I’m at La Guardia right now waiting for my connection.” Jane paused. “Are you all right? You sound stressed.”

        “The usual,” Darcy brushed aside her concern. If Jane knew anything about what happened at the facility, she wasn’t saying, and Jane wouldn’t do that to her, especially knowing Phil was stationed there. So Jane didn’t know, which meant SHIELD moved her right after it happened. Which meant Shit Was Not Good. “Had some time, wanted to know if you’d kidnapped Tony Stark yet.”

        Jane huffed. “They won’t even let me _talk_ to him.”She started talking faster as her irritation took hold. “I mean, I gave them the equations, my notes on where I think Asgard is located. I _told_ them that an arc reactor was the only known source of energy that could power a transmission that strong, if they wanted it to get there sometime in the next ten thousand years.” She huffed. “It’s not like I asked them to lend me Three Mile Island.”

        “Not this month,” Darcy added. 

        “It was once.”

        “In your defense, I think the painkillers were to blame for that one,” Darcy relented. “Look, gotta go. Don’t turn into a Jane-cicle.”

        Darcy spent the rest of the morning staring at her phone. She called in to let Peter know she wasn’t coming in to the diner, which was fine with him. They’d grown to a mutual understanding since she started taking over more of her mother’s on-site duties. She wasn’t there to take over the business, and if he wanted to have his hands in everything, that was just fine with her. Let him deal with Diane when she was back on her feet and hell-bent on removing any control he had. They were welcome to each other.

        When her mother woke up she didn’t say anything, just went in the kitchen for her normal breakfast of bud-brownie before starting in on yogurt and a bagel. They sat in silence, watching as people were carted away from the crater, as the death toll went up faster than the number of survivors. When the phone beeped Darcy jumped. There was a single text message.

        _Still breathing. Will call when I have some time._

        Darcy pressed the phone to her chest.

        “He’s alive?” her mother asked, spoon waving back and forth in yogurt.

        “Yeah,” the word was exhaled in a rush.

        “Good.”

        It was as much of a ringing endorsement as she was ever going to get.

        She stuck to her routine for the rest of the day, but kept her phone close. When _Secret Agent Man_ started playing at five that morning she fell out of bed trying to catch it before it went to voicemail. “Phil?”

        “Darcy.” He paused, and she could almost see the wrinkle in his forehead. “Are you all right?”

        “Fine!” She rolled back into bed and turned on the bedside lamp. “Are you-“

        “I’m fine. Busy, but fine.”

        She breathed for what felt like the first time since she turned the television on that morning. “How’s everyone else?” She wanted to ask what happened, but she knew she couldn’t. Not anymore. Phil had friends who worked at the facility, coworkers. “Clint?”

        There was silence, then, “We don’t know yet.”

        _Oh._ “Are you still in New Mexico?”

        “No.”

        They sat in silence for long seconds. _He’s alive,_ she told herself, trying to get her heart rate to go back down. _He’s alive he’s alive he’s alive._ “Have you gone to sleep?”

        “Not yet.” She could hear him smiling.

        “You should. Can’t save the world all drowsy.”

        There was the sound of rustling on the other end, and she imagined him settling down on some couch somewhere, maybe a bunk if he was lucky. “How was your day?” he asked.

        She didn’t tell him about watching the news all day, switching between feeds to try and find out what really happened. As if there was a chance of that. She talked about the weather, about how Talula was finally acting right again despite the fact that she hadn’t taken her to the shop. About how popular her Crasin-cream cheese muffins were becoming at the diner and how he was totally getting residuals for his suggestions. She talked until her voice started to crack, until Phil’s breathing evened out and a small snore sounded over the line.

        Darcy plugged in her phone, set it on speaker and turned on her side.

  

        It was the end of the world.

        When _Aliens attacking New York_ crawled across the screen she dropped her donut. That had to be the worst practical joke _ever_ and it wasn’t even April 1 st _._ When the news anchor picked up the story the kitchen went dead quiet, orders forgotten. There were aliens, honest to Thor _aliens_ , and not the ET kind either. There was smoke, and people running, and one television helicopter that got too close suddenly went black with the kind of finality that meant no one survived.

        There was a crash behind her as one of the waitresses (Cindy, whose brother went to NYU) dropped her tray and dug frantically for her phone. Other diners were moving, most of them for the doors, but a few huddled with everyone else in front of the television.

        Darcy called Phil.

        When that didn’t work, she texted him. Then texted him again. She knew Phil, knew that if aliens were invading then he was in the middle of it. SHIELD was in the middle of it. Something had knocked out most of the camera feeds in an area nearly ten city blocks, keeping images of everything but a fucking _hole_ over Stark Tower, spitting out small flying creatures and _space whales_ invisible. All her texts were the same: _stay safe, be careful._ Twice she typed _I love you,_ and twice she erased it. Phil didn’t need that, not then, not with SHIELD neck deep in alien invasion. We she talked to him next she would tell him: tell him how stupid she was and how they could make it work and that she hoped she hadn’t ruined everything.

        The battle lasted for almost an hour, from what they were able to see. Suddenly, the hole collapsed. Everyone waited for it to open again, maybe somewhere else. The news flickered to other countries, where riots were breaking out all over the world. The President declared a state of emergency for New York and mobilized the National Guard in every state, and everyone was weighing in on whether the US would institute limited martial law in the hardest hit areas. Experts were paraded in front of the media, though where they found an expert on inter-alien relations who also didn’t wear a tin-hat she didn’t know. By nine that night, when there didn’t seem to be a repeat of New York and a government spokesperson came forward to assure everyone that the threat was neutralized and the enemy had no way to return she was exhausted.

        And Phil didn’t call her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ:
> 
> Okay, starting from this point this will be a choose your own adventure fic: 
> 
> Even chapters will be "Happy!" Timeline  
> Odd Chapters will be "Sad" Timeline


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Sorry for it being so short, but read the author's note at the end and you will understand.

        Getting stabbed hurt.

        It was a strange thought to have for most people, but it was definitely one he was having. Shooting Loki with their experimental weapon (Agent Craster nicknamed it BFG) didn’t make the pain lessen, but it did give him a fleeting sense of satisfaction. There was hardly any kick to it, and something that could lay an Asgardian flat on his ass was nothing to sneeze at.

        Phil chuckled, and it pulled at something that really didn’t want to be pulled and pain spiked through his chest. It was getting hard to breathe, his right lung felt like it was being crushed and he couldn’t pull in enough air. With a grimace he dug out of his phone and dialed 911. The code would let them know he was down anywhere between Special Containment and the armory. With no way of knowing how many casualties they suffered during the assault there was no way to predict how long it would take an emergency team to reach him, but it was worth trying. That done he felt for his other phone, his fingers nearly numb.

        He flicked to his message thread with Darcy. _Stay safe!!!_ The last message she’d sent him. She would be pissed at him now. Phil wished they had more intel on Loki. Knowing he was capable of making doubles of himself would have made him more wary. He still would have confronted him; he just would have been watching his back a little more carefully. Thor, if he survived the fall in the cage, would have some serious-

        Phil shook himself mentally. He was fading out, and he still had something to do. With his thumb he started typing out a message, but his fingers went numb and sloppy, the effort of keeping his head bent down was too much, and he couldn’t lift the phone.

        When Nick came into his field of view he gave his report. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This is not the end of my verse, but it is the end of this particular section and is the spot where the stories diverge. A few people have asked that I post the Choose Your Own Adventure as two seperate stories for convience sake, so that's what I'm gonna do. Both the happy and the sad story lines will be updated the same day. There will be places where both overlap, but they will definitely have different endings.
> 
> The 'Happy' storyline is titled "With Up So Floating Many Bells Down"  
> The 'Sad' storyline is titled "Because I Could Not Stop for Death"
> 
> Once again, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Darcy is listening to _Sing, Sing, Sing_ as she heads home, probably one of the most recognizable jazz tunes ever. It is a shot out to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer.


End file.
